Saturday, August 20, 2016

1. Find the key under the pot on the wicker table and enter
through French doors in the atrium in the back of the house. …
2. Greet Bessie with a treat. Your choice. You'll learn. Put a couple in your pocket ... or if you don't want your change to smell like bacon ...
7. Although we walk her without the leash, Bessie demands attention
and “range awareness.” If she senses she is out of your domain,
she runs around trying to find a new pile of deer pellets, a fresh
road kill, or will sometimes chase the phantom beast into the woods.
You know the phantom beast is around when she perks up, poses, and
jerks her head from one pose to another. (She is beautiful when the
phantom beast shows up, but she also uses it as an excuse to go her
own way, indefinitely, and you are being paid by the trip rather than
by the hour.) …
16. … Let Bessie escort you to the rabbit hutch.
17. At this point, depending on her appetite, Bessie will
try to gulp down some rabbit goodies under the rabbit cage. She
wouldn’t be a dog otherwise. (Just a word of warning in case she
tries to lick you later.) Make sure she uses her napkin. …
18. Change the rabbit water bottle and refill the food dish in the
hutch. Access is through the small roof panel. …
20. Buster is the older of the two rabbits, white and now
dominated by the other one, for whom, admittedly, we do not have the
same feelings as those for Buster. Say “Hey, Buster,” putting the
right intonation on it and letting her know you know she is the
victim of circumstance, a prisoner of her pink skin and eyes, her
white fur, and the needs of the once weak and pitiful foundling
rabbit who has matured to become a dominatrix at poor Buster’s
expense. The echoes of that greeting should indicate that Sadya, Vane
and Randy will take her out more often, hold her, and let her walk on
the fresh grass at every opportunity. And that she is a vivacious
looking hunk of rabbit for a 10 year old. “Hey, Buster.”
21. Walk Bessie till she has peed and pooped. We use the
time-worn, “Make your BM, Bessie,” because it does seem to have a
salutatory effect. She will decide on a spot by a certain, almost
telepathic movement, and will circle an extraordinary (seems to me,
anyway) number of times. If the number is particularly high or if she
changes directions more than once, she does not take offense if you
laugh. She is more than a dog.
22. … walk Bessie into the woods. (Because the threat of the
phantom beast sometimes looms, and though some, among them I, prefer
the gentle light of stars regardless, the light switch for the
outdoor lights is above the telephone, next to the French doors in
the kitchen. They illuminate the rabbit hutch and the woods trail
enough, in most cases, to foil the beast.) …
25. Release Bessie and spend as much time as you like smoking
cigars, shooting darts, and otherwise socializing with her. …
27. Ah. Now Barney. Upstairs (through the living room from the
kitchen bearing right, u-turn up, at the top, right.) in Sadya’s
playroom is the we-call-it terrarium with a chamelion in it. He hides
in the lip of the cover sometimes, so be careful when removing it or
he will be CRUSHED or ESCAPE! You probably won’t have to remove the
lid, though, because he has just been given 24 large crickets who
have been left a large leaf of lettuce. Crickets are living in Eden.
Barney is on safari there. …
28. Spray the back side of the tank liberally with water [rain
forest!] from the sprayer next to the we-call-it aquarium, but try
not to hit Barney. He springs alarmingly fast and might hurt his
delicate being.
29. … Say your goodbyes. Check the door to the basement once
more and leave through the French doors. Rattle them to be sure they
are locked.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

When you read her note ...
at the second
mention of depression alerted by the first,
leaving in a
vacuum, your heart deserted,
somehow fluttered in the emptiness,
and echoed hollow chill
inside this place you think.

Your face is cool, your breath is gone.
Along the path your longing (yes, it's longing) exposes some bare truth
--
like a single tuft of moss and lichen,
joyous color in a frozen
winter wood --
so you see you see. You see you see?
Oh, you are so
alone, heartless, breathing here amongst your fellows.